My first CreativeMornings event was back in September 2014 and was a breath of fresh air. It was almost three years to this day and it has since changed my life! At a point where I was leaving a very square job as an engineer, I had just stumbled upon a world where creativity was celebrated with a touch of madness. It was instinctive, I knew I wanted to be part of this community. When Louis-Félix asked me to join the team a few months later, I said YES without hesitation. Two years later, it is now an incredible honor to take the direction of the chapter. I’m involved in CreativeMornings/Montreal because it is an incredible playground, with twelve opportunities per year to try new things. It is a space where we believe in magic, surrounded by inspiring and devoted people.

I love that CreativeMornings celebrates creativity and the human experience. It is always about our speakers’ personal experience; whether they share their creative process or a project they initiated to solve a problem, it inspires us to reconnect with our own creativity. I think that’s why we go back to CreativeMornings, so that through our busy lives we can reconnect with the little spark of genius within each of us. Some of our participants attended over 30, 40, 50 events, and our team is composed of very committed people, it’s incredible to be part of that.

One thing is certain, CreativeMornings truly allowed me to grow and become who I am today, and it is with great gratitude that I will now carry the title of host. Filling the shoes of Louis-Felix Binette, and before him Steve Bissonnette, is somewhat intimidating! Four years after its creation, I wish for the continuation of our chapter to remain always relevant to our city, and to create even stronger connections in the community. I also hope that our organization remains a space for experimentation and growth for everyone involved. That we each continue to grow both on a personal level and as a team, and that CreativeMornings/Montreal keeps growing with us. I am proud to be part of such a strong and passionate team that is so dedicated to make our events happen month after month.

The motto of CreativeMornings is Everyone is creative, everyone is welcome. We want everyone to believe in their own creativity and ability to change the world, and we continue our revolution – a conference and cup of coffee at a time.

Of Bulgarian origin, born in Morocco and Montreal grown, she likes to consider herself a citizen of the world. Outside of CreativeMornings, she is a mechanical engineer who, after developing an interest for human connection, has since gravitated towards management, innovation and now, community mobilization.

Dots Do Dots

How calculating would the conversations be at an AccountingMornings/Montreal event?

How would the spirit be animated at a Coroner’s Mornings/Montreal event?

How risky would the exchanges be at an InsuranceMornings/Montreal event?

These are honorable and important professions. Their
contributions to society are essential. However, the tête-à-têtes that would
emerge over a coffee would be quite precise, particular, and punishingly
painful.

I wonder how ‘they’ would describe the conversations
at CreativeMornings/Montréal : Whacky? Wonky?
Whimsical? Whatever?

Yes, that’s it ; they are correct : Whatever! Our
conversations take us to Whateverland.
Anywhere we want. No Borders. No Walls. Limitless. Like helium balloons we
float and bounce and stick and shock. We can be tied to each other in twos,
threes, and fours. We come in all colours and sizes ; we have patterns and
piercings and sometimes we even burst. No rules to restrict the drifting
direction of our connection. How lucky are we?

Elon Musk would do well to study how to harness the power of
our combined electric and creative energy. But we don’t really need Elon, we
have Dots. What? Dots?

DOTS DO DOTS: To capture
and harness the power of collaboration in our creative community, and provide a
stage to share these compelling and connecting stories.

WHAT sort of imaginative flurry or even an avalanche of
discussions occur in the moments or days after each CreativeMornings/Montréal
event?

WHAT positive outcomes resulted? Outcomes that would not
have happened if not for the monthly communal gatherings of a group of inspired
like-minded, or more important - unlike- minded
people?

WHO are these people, and what did they build together, a
friendship, an idea, an initiative, a service, a business, or even a failure?

HOW many success stories have been ignited by haphazard
conversations amongst the CreativeMornings/Montréal populace?

WHERE did this take them, and what was the creative process?

WHY did this happen? Why does the assemblage of creative
minded people at our CreativeMornings/Montréal events bring out thoughts of
innovation, processes for advancement, and foundations for betterment? These
stories are what powers us to keep coming back.

When this occurs, we can say that we have built micro
Creative Moments amongst the macro CreativeMornings. Who knows where these
Micro Moments lead to?

HOW many dots have been connected in the audience? How many
balloons danced, bounced, burst or stuck? It’s raining balloons, hallelujah!

Let’s count the synergies.

Ours is a short story of DOTS DO DOTS DO DOTS. One
CreativeMornings converted into three friendships. One CreativeMornings
encounter became an avalanche of ideas. One CreativeMornings brought out the
humanity in each of us, the eagerness and unselfish willingness to help,
inspire, and motivate each other.

Véronique, Chantal and Steve became a team, we became
friends. A Millennial, a Generation X’er and a Baby-Boomer. Where else
could this occur? Thank you CreativeMornings/Montréal!

CreativeMornings/Montréal would like to hear your stories.
Take a moment and share your DOTS DO DOTS story. It’s simple, it’s inspiring.

Let’s power up our community with y/our whacky, wonky,
whimsical, and even whatever stories? Take us to Whateverland.

Behind every successful CreativeMornings/Montreal event there is a team of creative & passionate people that contribute their time and skills to create wonderful experiences for the Montreal community. Want to join us and be part of our family of creatives? We are currently looking for graphic designers, who would help create graphic content, bring to life our visual concepts and communicate our ideas.

Talent and creativity! Because we are CreativeMornings!!! Your graphics will need be interesting and engaging to our creative audience.

What we offer:

Your work will be presented to a vast community, not just in Montreal, but globally. CreativeMornings is an amazing platform that brings together passionate people, who are always looking for partnerships, collaborations and the next cool project. It’s a great launch ramp, a great way to grow your network of contacts, and gain visibility.

Depending on the situation, your work will be displayed on our social media (Facebook, Intagram), our blog on the CreativeMornings website, our blog on Voir, and as printed materials during the events.

You will be part of our amazing super-team of volunteers. We’re all passionate about creativity - you’ll fit right in. We all share great moments and get inspired together.

And on top of all that…you will have special access to the coolest monthly event in the city! Guaranteed entrance and no waitlist!

« Why am I ‘writing’ this? » I asked myself in the shower. A few words from
last night’s meeting with the CreativeMornings team stuck into my head. As I am
typing, I have no clue what this will become or how it will be received. And it
is terrifying.

Let’s Throw Ourselves Into The Unknown

Then why are you doing it, you ask. Truth is, as I am typing this, I
don’t have the answer. Carmichael would have said “because I have a sensation that this is bigger than me”.
Similarly, our speaker Chantal Gosselin explains: “I
didn’t question whether I should do it, it was boiling inside of me, I had to”.

Collectively thinking about what CreativeMornings is about and what it
means to people was a much-needed process, after the ups and downs of the last
year. Many of us have been through a rough time, and this new dawn seemed like
the perfect occasion to get together and reflect on what’s to come.

Holding the space

After opening the door to the community last month and walking with our
speakers Steve, Véronique and Chantal through the creative process, something
happened. Some of us, who attended the CreativeMornings summit in Austin last November, felt it even deeper;
we must go back to basics.

“This endeavour has the worst
business model ever” oncesaid Tina Roth Eisenberg, the founder of CreativeMornings: “we organize free events, we invite
everybody and then we wonder how we’re going to pay for everything!”

So why are we all doing this? Maude, in charge of logistics, shared: “What’s really interesting and gets to people
is the relatability of what’s revealed within that bubble of trust. The passion
and the emotions are palpable, and the proximity with the community creates a
strong and moving experience.”

Montreal chapter’s host Louis-Félix added: “We
don’t want free cereals; we can buy our own All Brans! We want to carry and
spread the voices of the people driven by passion and purpose, people who
create and inspire others to create. We want to encourage the community to act
and do the things they love. And we want them to come because we’re a safe
place.”

“Whether the speakers are well known
or not, what makes a difference is how we see them. We must be there, listen
with all our soul so that they can deliver their message, with generosity and
vulnerability. We’re a platform for our community to take-off.”

For some of us, these words resonated profoundly. Personally, I had
probably seen at some point that there was a manifesto somewhere, explaining what the events were
about, but I had never felt it.

The mystery

So how can we, together, create this safe place? How can we hold the
space, without judgment or ego, without dividing or letting people aside? How
can we embed benevolence and inclusiveness in everything we do?

Chantal believes
to keep it alive, “this mission has to be carried by each and every one of us. Our
values must be in our heart, in who we are and what we do”.

One thing is for sure, there is no clear path ahead of us, but wherever
we go, we should go together. Now, mystery can be frightening, as our guest
speakers learned. It can be paralyzing, and yet if we can channel our
imagination, the same mystery can foster hope and become a vector for
creativity.

We are social creatures

I feel like I owe you an answer. I believe the reason why I am sharing
this is because I would not be anything without you. All of you. Because
imagination is what sets us apart as a species, what enabled language,
learning, and therefore transmission of knowledge. It made us conscious,
provided we are, in fact, part of a community.

As Henri Laborit put it, we are a part of an ecosystem,
but by ourselves, we cannot be fully conscious. Removed from our environment,
we cannot comprehend what separates “us” from “others”, which is why we need to
connect and share to evolve.

I believe I feel the urge to share thoughts, questions and perspectives
because they help me define who I am just as much as, hopefully, they help you
find where you stand and who you want to be.

Even if you disagree or condemn, I want to believe the exercise is still
giving you something useful, provoking thoughts and emotions to better
understand who you are, and what your purpose is.

With the new year upon us, I wish you to find and follow your passion,
and with all my heart, I hope you will find your safe haven, within the
community or elsewhere, to find your voice and be heard.

“Snow White is Dead is what we ended up calling neurofiction”, author Hannu Rajaniemi explains in Wired’s podcast. “It’s an interactive fiction piece, but without conscious choice.”

Would You Let An AI Read Your Mind?

The 38
years old Finnish science fiction author, along with data scientist friend
Samuel Halliday, got his hands on a simple wearable brain scanner
and started wondering how he could use the technology to tell more engaging
stories.

So in 2012,
they came up with a story that could be read wearing the wireless headset, and
branch and change depending on whether the reader showed more affinity for life
or death imagery.

Think of it as a modern version of the
text-only interactive games of the late 70’s, or a Choose
Your Own AdventureeBook, but where your brain’s electrical activity
determines the choices.

The project
has been open-sourced to encourage innovation, meaning with
a $400 piece of hardware, some machine learning and writing skills, everyone
can venture into the depths of the design space created by emerging
brain-computer interface technologies.

A window to your soul

While there
is a lot of fuss these days around whether we can make artificial intelligence (or AI) truly
intelligent, giving ‘brains’ to machines might not always be enough. For
instance, a brain without eyes can perceive much less of its environment.

This is
where connecting machines to our brain
can become extremely powerful, and not just for medicine. And with the soaring number of patents awarded for
“neurotechnology” since 2010, its safe to say a lot of corporations think so. Enabling machines to get a
better understanding of the way we think and feel could give them an
artificial form of emotional intelligence.

Electroencephalography (EEG) itself has been use
for decades to diagnose and study conditions such as epilepsy, sleep disorders
and brain death. Recently, however, its use has expanded outside of the realm
of medicine and into the for-profit world.

One of the
first application to
emerge from the rise of brain-wave measuring devices and wearable tech was
neuromarketing, where volunteers would put on an awkward swim cap covered with
sensors in a Clockwork Orange type of experiment, in order to measure -more of less accurately- the
cognitive and emotional responses to advertising.

Now, if the
added value for the consumer might be a little bit harder to see with
marketing, storytelling in general could benefit greatly from having access to
a window to your soul.

Telling better stories

In the
entertainment world, this gives storytellers such as film and game makers
a whole new set of possibilities. Developing adaptive and personalized story lines according to the audience’s reaction isn’t a fantasy anymore.

Can you
imagine yourself, a few years from now, going to see the same movie three times
in theatre and each time, discovering a different possible ending because the
audience’s vibe wasn’t the same?

Similarly,
artists such as Lisa Park
have been exploring how connecting mind and machine can lead to beautiful and
authentic music pieces: “I started
working with EEG headsets because I questioned, ‘how can I take this invisible
energy and emotions and make it visible?” said Park in an interview.

This gave me the chills, no need
for a headset to confirm!

Aside from
entertainment, education is another area that could greatly benefit from these technologies
going mainstream. I don’t know about you, but as a child, I would gap out very
quickly once I understood where the teacher was going. Education at the time
was meant levelling down to
the lowest common denominator which, as a result, left the restless
minds feeling quite stuck.

Today, education
has learned its lesson, and a lot of new philosophies have emerged, making
learning much more experiential, and using storytelling to captivate and
encourage creativity.

Much like
marketing, schools are now trying to differentiate themselves by delivering a
unique experience. People such as Pierre-Majorique Léger work on improving educational apps by analyzing massive amounts of
bio-physiological data, such
as eye movement and pupillary response.

Generated while users interact with a product
or an app, the data serves to determine whether an experience is intuitive and
fun, or too complicated to understand. For example, the absence of light is not
the only factor which can cause pupil dilation; difficult mental tasks produce
the same effect, and can easily be measured using eye tracking glasses.

Don’t Tell Me The Moon Is Shining

With trust being at an all-time low and lines blurring between reality and fantasy, the winners will be those who successfully display the inside out.

Ever since Millennials started being seen as an influential crowd with
real purchasing power, brands jumped in the authenticity bandwagon. Using the associated
language and terminology, mass-market brands distorted the core values they
meant to impersonate until -ironically-, they stopped feeling authentic.

Six years later, multinationals such as MacDonald’s and Häagen-Dazs are
trying hard to make you believe in their grilled chicken or ice cream
collections are “artisan made”, because their advertising agency
must have told them that’s what it takes to please the hipster cohort.

While it might look like a decent compromise for a brand not wanting to
change its process too much to gain new market shares, increasingly educated
and sophisticated consumers now have the tools to question brands credentials.

Yesterday
was all about celebrating “diversity” and showing “real women”. Today, consumers see right through the
marketing tricks and know that most shiny new corporate sustainability
initiatives are really just greenwashing.

Stop hiding

Brands,
however, are not the only culprits. With VR meant to go mainstream before long,
new questions arise regarding our online behaviour, especially while hiding
behind an avatar.

While
sexual harassment has long been a problem in online and gaming communities, VR
has the potential of making the abuse feel much more physical, as Jordan Belamire sadly experienced.

In an open-letter published -in French- by Urbania, the young signer-songwriter
poignantly asks: “Why do you hate me so
much?”, before answering her own question: “Because I’m a woman. Because I was myself. The person I became after
all the crap, after years of violent bullying that forced me to go to the police
and change schools seven times.”

Now this is
a woman who’s not afraid to show who she really is. This is a woman with strong
values, who has been through hell and came back to tell her story. This is the
kind of story we need.

Cut
the 💩

As we have recently witnessed south of the
border, people have had enough of carefully tailored responses. The fact that an astonishing
majority elected Donald Trump as 45th president of the United States
demonstrates how much the American people has grown tired of political correctness,
even if the alternative is not necessarily pretty. The need for change has
become too important to be denied.

Crafted.
Bespoke. Artisan. Immersive. Disruptive. Innovative. Authentic. Time to kill
the buzzwords. No more borrowed aesthetics and ethos, no more hiding behind
designer dresses. The time has come to move to a new narrative; one that truly align
communications and actions.

Stay true

Looking at
Safia Nolin and -at the other end of the spectrum- Donald Trump’s stories makes
me think success must have something to do with finding our unique voice
instead of conforming to what others might want to hear.

Instead of
hiding behind a carefully constructed and zealously guarded self-image, denying
everything that might challenge our perception of ourselves, perhaps we would
all be better off acknowledging nobody is perfect, and celebrating how our
unique set of experiences shaped our perspective.

For instance, telling the world how we value integrity or inclusiveness
does not mean a thing if our actions do not speak louder than our words. Where
big data can tell us occurrences, performance and test results, experiences and
storytelling have the power to show an entirely new perspective of the same
situation.

Whether for a job interview, a first date or an ad for a new product,
using imagination to show -not tell- what we are made of is far more
compelling. And if you still believe creativity and imagination are not for
everyone, think again. Children are naturally creative, it
is taught out of them at school! What we need is simply to slow down and take the time to notice.

Like photographers, we need to break free of our molds and explore
different perspectives of the same scene until we find the one angle showing
precisely what we have to say.

Is The Road To Happiness Paved With Data?

Your smartphone woke you up earlier than expected, you mumble, as you read 5:45 AM on the screen. Reading further though, a notification informs you “your flight has been cancelled.” In order to make it to your destination in time, you’ll have to book an earlier flight, plus take into consideration morning traffic.

Fortunately, you can avoid a few nightmares by getting up at once and tapping “book now” while chugging a cup
of coffee (or three).

Without the digital and mobile revolution, the use of consumers’
personal information to develop new tailored services such as the example above
would not have been possible.

On the other side, new revenue streams and increased profits created by
this harvested information have consumers concerned. If the value of
information sharing can be very clear at times, it can also raise number of
questions. Is this value equally shared among all stakeholders?

If you’re not paying,
you’re the product

Even if the concept of collecting information to personalize services is
far from being new, it’s the consumers’ awareness about why, how and what
information is collected for commercial purposes that changed as technologies
made it more and more fluid and automated.

Using broadband or Wi-Fi on mobile allowed an unrestricted access to the
internet, whether it’s to find the best Lebanese restaurant in the
neighbourhood or to monitor your health as you train for the next half-marathon.
In the IoT era, our physical lives merge
with our online habits. From socializing to shopping or watching TV, we now
evolve in a phygital world.

By interacting with a few dozen businesses in average every day, from
reading their newsletters to using their apps, we send them signals about how,
when and sometimes why we use their content, product or services.

This (big) data is collected, analyzed and tested in order to build
predictive analyses, gain priceless insights about unnamed motives and needs.

It can also be used to target a certain demographic for advertisers
looking to maximize their return over investment. In such models, if the
content is free, it is because you, the user, are being sold as part of a
“targeted audience”.

The more granular the targeting can get, the more appealing to some
advertisers, whose mind-set changed from mass media and global communications
to segments and personalized, automated communications. From programmatic to
addressable VOD ads, ad servers become more sophisticated every minute.

The price of ad blocking

On the other hand, ad-blockers now approach
200 million monthly active users, as consumers try to avoid privacy threats. While
it is perfectly understandable, it poses a major threat to digital media
companies. Since people are more reluctant to pay for their news, publishers
can’t expect their revenues to come from subscriptions alone, and yet many of
them struggle against ad blocking to remain attractive to advertisers.

From micropayment systems to “ad light” trial versions, today’s media face an
ethically challenging problem: how to best serve your audience for a price they
are willing to pay while protecting their privacy? And believe me, even if the Spotlight years are gone, good content still doesn’t come
cheap.

And the online world is growing at an exponential speed; just think
about Google’s Nest and Apple’s HomeKit, looking to connect to your home and
monitor your environment. Your bank could even tell from your social media
profiles if you have a risky behaviour and decide to not grant you that car
loan, even if you have never missed a payment on your credit card. And this is
where it gets tricky…

What if you were to be declined that promotion because your employer
found out you were expecting a child? What if you could have gotten that trip
to the Caribbean for much cheaper if only you had not been categorized as “high
income”? What if the government was to start asking questions about tax evasion
because of those pictures of you drinking champagne at your friend’s cottage?

If you think this is pure paranoia, take a look at Do Not Track, a personalized web series
about privacy and the web economy. In fact, until very recently in the United States, the
Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986 allowed law enforcement
authorities to read emails from citizens without a warrant and use them in an
investigation.

As technologies evolve faster than laws (it took the US 20 years to
review the act), an increasing number of business practices fall into the grey
area. So how do we, as consumers, regulate what we share and what we keep to
ourselves, while we barely know if this smart TV or that game console is
recording our every move? Where is the limit between tailored offers and personalized content and privacy threats? Who decides what gets shared with
who, when new products and business models arise faster than rules to oversee
them and protect consumers?

In an era
of mass digitization, Montreal came up with a four-year strategic plan to become “the #1 smart city in the world”. Of course, if it plays its cards
right, digital could be a great opportunity to revive its economy through new
jobs and GDP growth.

(Net)Working In The Digital Era

This new
dynamic has created a communications revolution placing transparency at the
centre of consumers’ and employees’ concerns. Today, anyone with an Internet
connection can reach almost instantly millions of others around the globe;
humans, bots or objects.

And yet
ironically, as we shifted from the stability of long-term investments to the adaptability
of short-term cost-cutting measures, loyalty became scarce and relationships
now rely on mutual self-deception.

Can we be honest?

Perhaps
those of us who fear being replaced by robots or automated programs in the near
future don’t fear new technologies as much as managers and their general lack
of adaptability in today’s fast paced environment.

Employees
are seen as job-hoppers and opportunists, while employers can fire their
staff at any moment and for any reason. As a result, neither side trusts each
other nor truly profits from the relationship.

The answer,
as LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman suggests in his latest book, could be found in a new framework re-balancing power, resulting in an
alliance not meant to last indefinitely, as in the long gone industrial era,
but as long as both the company and the individual benefit from it.

Personalization: not just
for consumers

By crafting
personalized “tours of duty” matching
each employee’s objectives and career goals, managers create teams whose
loyalty and dedication to the job generate ROI which largely surpass the
resources dedicated to managing them.

The idea is
quite simple: instead of hiring resources based on a static job description and
for an undetermined duration, three “tour of duty” types describe different
types of relationships to match specific needs.

The rotational tour is meant for young
graduates and technical staff. They are generally not positions leading to a
manager role. For example, a programmer could never want to become tea lead for
various reasons.

This one to
three-year tour allow both parties to learn more about each other, master the
environment and acquire new skills. Although negotiated individually, this tour
usually comes with a standard frame.

A few
months before completion, the manager and the employee can decide together if
they want to pursue the relationship and at which condition. A replacement can
be found with the help of the employee finishing her tour and, in case she
transits out of the company, it should be without hard feelings.

These
conditions do not necessarily equate to a rise or a change in job title; it is
not a power struggle. The objectives should however differ from one tour to the
next. For the employer, to allow its resource to progress according to his
career plans. For the employee, to transform positively the business by his
contribution.

Lateral
moves (within different services, teams or projects) allow a fresh view brought
by an employee who’s already familiar with internal processes and the company’s
culture. For example, allowing a copywriter to be assigned to a different
creative team. The company avoids shortcuts and corner cutting and the employee
avoids stagnation.

Quite the
opposite, the foundational tour can
spread on decades, closer to the previous model from the industrial era. Meant
for company leaders, executive personnel and a few key members whose loyalty
has been flawless and who wish to remain indefinitely with the company, this
tour can only be offered if the employee’s value match the company’s perfectly.
Think founder, public figure, etc.

Between
these opposites is the transformational
tour, meant for ambitious and star employees as well as those who have
already completed one or multiple rotational tours and whose loyalty allows for
a deeper commitment (on each part).

These tours
are negotiated individually, tailor-made and do not fit any predefined job
description. The employee transforms her career by adding skills and experience
to her portfolio while the company is transformed by the employee within the
limits of her specific mission to grow the business.

Depending on the type of job, industry
and experience level, tours of duty can last anywhere between six months to
five years, and regular follow-ups allow for an open conversation to take place
about everyone’s satisfaction (to download a statement of alliance template, click here).

The Alliance also underlines the importance of a strong
corporate alumni network both for recruitment and customer
referrals. But its most controversial advice might be for companies to start mining intelligence from their
employees’ external networks to help solve problems, learn about emerging trends, competitors’
focus, or the outside world’s perception of their own brand.

Seen as
risky or downright threatening to existing business structures, this approach
could nevertheless create an environment of transparency and trust, where
skills can be acquired rather than being a prerequisite, stakes are discussed
openly and lateral moves made possible.